Exam 22: Extension 7: Learning Curves

Sally suspects strongly that there is a learning curve associated with solving problems assigned for operations management.She notes that it took her approximately 33 minutes to solve the first problem and 17 minutes to solve the fifth problem. (A) Estimate Sally's learning percentage. (B) Using your answer from Part A, estimate how long it will take Sally to finish the three remaining problems.

For an 80% learning curve, if the first unit requires 10 hours, the second unit will require 8 hours and the third 6.4 hours.

What is the expected time required to produce the 40^th unit?

According to learning curve theory, every doubling of total output will produce a constant percentage decrease in time per unit.

The decrease in time between the second and fourth units will be equal to the decrease in time between the first and second units.

A learning rate of 97% will produce minor decreases in completion times of the first few repetitions.

Negotiated purchasing results in lower unit costs for smaller quantities.

In which of the following managerial activities would learning curves probably be the least useful?

If the elapsed time for the task is short and the activity is somewhat routine, a modest amount of improvement occurs during the first few repetitions.

Learning curves generally apply to situations in which there is a high degree of human involvement and tasks are fairly repetitive.

Increasing volumes result in ___________ the learning curve.

Approximately how long will it take to produce the tenth unit?

Once production is underway and the learning curve effect is occurring, successive changes made to the production process will cause the time per unit to:

How long did it take to produce the first unit?

What is the average time per unit for the first 30 units?

Ron has noted that the first accounting problem he did in a set of similar problems took him one hour, and the ninth problem took 24 minutes. (A) Estimate Ron's learning curve. (B) About how long did it take Ron to do his set of 10 problems?

A job has a 70% learning curve.If the first unit took 10 hours to complete, the third unit should take roughly how many hours?

To which of the following challenges are learning curves important considerations?

What is the learning curve percentage?

According to learning curve theory, for certain kinds of tasks the cost per unit decreases as the number of repetitions increases.